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russian laundromat

The UK will force people owning property worth more than £50,000 (US$70,000) who have suspected links to organized crime or are vulnerable to graft as a result of their political position to explain where they got their money from, The Times reported on Saturday.

The daughter of a top Moldovan judge lived large in London thanks to 1.6 million lei (US$ 130,000) that was channeled through two companies involved in the Russian Laundromat -- a massive money laundering scheme that pumped billions of dollars through Moldova from Russia.

Three years ago, OCCRP exposed the “Russian Laundromat” - an immense financial fraud scheme that enabled vast sums to be pumped out of Russia. The money was laundered and moved into Europe and beyond through bribery and a clever exploitation of the Moldovan legal system.

The Moldovan government accused Russian authorities of trying to obstruct an investigation into the role of Moldovan judges and other officials in the laundering of US$ 22 billion of Russian organized crime money.

Documents leaked to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) from Latvian banks appear to offer instructions to clients on how to use fake offshore companies associated with the bank to launder money or evade taxes.

The Latvian Financial and Capital Market Commission (FKTK) said on Friday that it would set “operational restrictions” on Trasta Komercbanka barring the bank from carrying out debit transactions in any currency, including through online banking, ATMs, and by cash to customers for any amount in excess of € 100,000 (US$ 108,000).

Russia's "shadow banker" Alexander Grigoriev has been arrested while dining with his girlfriend in the glamourous restaurant he part-owns in Moscow.

On Friday, Oct. 30, agents from Russia’s domestic intelligence body the FSB, along with anti-corruption officers and special forces, raided Sfera restaurant and clapped the 48-year-old in handcuffs as he lay on the ground, reports national newspaper Kommersant.

The bank theft was so outsized and bold that citizens of the Republic of Moldova came out in the streets this past May by the thousands to protest: “We want our billion back!”

They used the number -- US$ 1 billion – that news accounts reported had gone missing from three Moldovan banks in November of 2014. Unsure who to blame, the protestors denounced the government, politicians, banks and organized crime.

Eight foreigners have been arrested by officers of Moldova’s National Anti-Corruption Center on suspicion of money laundering, while a ninth suspect remains under police observation while hospitalized for an undisclosed ailment.

French authorities have launched an investigation into money laundering and organized crime activities in France, Monaco and Luxembourg connected to the Magnitsky Affair, the largest tax fraud in Russian history.

The Russian Laundromat, a large multi-billion money laundering machine uncovered last year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), used the services of several residents of a small town near Kyiv. But while they controlled billions, the directors of the British and Russian companies that comprised the scheme never even knew of their power – or their involvement. In 2014, OCCRP reporters in Moldova noticed that judges in their country were issuing numerous rulings of the same kind... Read more